More than just your typical seasoning for your stews, soups and poultry dishes, the rosemary herb and the evergreen rosemary shrub have a lot of uses. The plant is also a beautiful ornamental plant for your garden that fills the air with a minty pine-like scent. It also grows pretty flowers that may be blue, white, or pink depending on the variety.

The evergreen rosemary leaves are particularly useful as they can be extracted to make a tea that has been known to benefit the eyes, the brain, and the mood; and make rosemary essential oils that have a lot of health benefits including increased memory and alertness.

Native in the Mediterranean, the rosemary plant is based on the Latin translation of “dew of the sea”, and has been used for Mediterranean cuisine for centuries. Research has shown that rosemary has been around earlier than 5000BC. It has been used in rituals in Egypt and utilized by ancient Greeks and Romans. It was then brought to China, then Europe, and finally to the Americas. It is now naturalized in many parts of the world.